Cinematech Episode 312: “The Neverending Combo”
Timecode: 5:27: An adorable anime trailer
for Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, a spinoff of the Dragon Quest series starring a heroic little slime called Rocket. Let's let the narrator explain:
- ”Once upon a slime... there was a little boing called Rocket. Rocket and his fellow slimes were living the goo life in their peaceful hometown of Boingburg. Rocket spent his time gooing about his business with his three slime friends. Then, one day... the 100-strong plopulation of Boingburg was suddenly slime-napped! Leaving Rocket lonely and blue... Until he unearthed the legendary Schleiman Tank! Ready, aim, fire! Fight those menacing monster tanks! Save your captured friends! Fire those cannons! Battle the enemy, but don't get sloppy! Stretch, spring, and shoot your way to success! Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime -This slime, it's war!
I love how over-the-top the narrator is, although he does seem to be slightly embarrassed by all of the puns. DQ loves its puns like slimes love to be cute.
The game itself was a fun little romp with a lot of sidequests, like rescuing all of the slimes from the Plob (a gang run by Platypunks), and finding all of the recipes for the best ammo to use in the tank battles. It was actually the second in a series of DQ spinoff games. The first, Slime MoriMori Dragon Quest: Shogeki no Shippo Dan, came out on the Game Boy Advance, while the third game, Slime MoriMori Dragon Quest 3: The Great Pirate Ship and Tails Troupe, came out for the Nintendo 3DS in Japan. Unfortunately, Square Enix seems to have this odd grudge against translating D games and spinoffs into English for release outside Japan...
Cinematech Episode 314: “Call of the Cinematech'''
So called because it features clips from the FPS Call of Juarez. In one of these clips, an antagonist calls the main character a “self-righteous son of a whore”. Dialog! How did they predict what online gamers are likely to call each other in matches?
9:35: Did you know that there was a game based on an Ace Ventura: Pet Detective animated series for the PC? I didn't, until I saw this ep. I also didn't know that there was an animated series until I looked up this game. This licensed game from 1996 was developed by 7th Level. Of course, Jim Carrey himself didn't reprise his role for this game.
In this clip, Ace tries to save an eagle whose nest is perched precariously along the side of a mountain. A villain tries to snatch the bird, but Ace tars and feathers him, and the day is saved.
As it turns out, Seth MacFarlane was one of the writers on the Ace Ventura cartoon.
12:25: Clips from Deep Labyrinth by Atlus, a first-person dungeon crawler for the Nintendo DS, with music composed by Yasunori Mitsuda. Unlike the grid-based movement of the Etrian Odyssey games or Persona Q: Shadow Of The Labyrinth, this game appears to allow free range of movement. However, the frame rate doesn't look very smooth and the draw distance looks rather low, which creates a very foggy or empty-looking world. There are some freaky-looking monsters to kill like the two-headed dog.
Not to be confused with the unpopular Genesis roguelike Fatal Labyrinth, which only exists as Snark Bait.
13:43: A clip from the legendarily tricky The Immortal, an RPG which originated on the PC, but was ported to the NES. The main character walks over a depression in the dungeon floor, and the game gives the player the message, “It might be a good idea to move.” As soon as the message fades, a sandworm-like monster bursts out of the floor and swallows him whole.
This game later became much more famous when Let's PlaySlowbeef launched a new subgenre of New Media with it: the Let's Play, with the “Let's Play The Immortal” thread on Something Awful. Let's Play itself became a new format for gamers to share games and to even make a living... doubtlessly to the chagrin of some.
14:15: This is one I've been waiting to talk about: Darkened Skye. This is the infamous Skittles “advergame”. Now, what do you think would be a good fit for the license? A puzzle game, perhaps? Certainly not a fantasy adventure for PCs starring a heroine named Skye. The story of this game's development is pretty interesting. They only agreed to do it if they could have some fun with it, and the result is a game that pokes fun of both fantasy and video game tropes with its dialog. The CG graphics are pretty nice for a game of its era. Far nicer than it had to be for an advergame, at least.
Linkies from Your Corporate Overlords
- A preview of Darkened Skye
- PC Gamer's Saturday Crapshoot for Darkened Skye
